TODO

   1 ************************************************************************
   2 * Official mandoc TODO.
   3 * $Id: TODO,v 1.129 2012/03/04 23:53:37 schwarze Exp $
   4 ************************************************************************
   5
   6 ************************************************************************
   7 * parser bugs
   8 ************************************************************************
   9
  10 - ".\}" on its own line gets translated to bare ".\&"
  11   which forces pset() into man(7)
  12   and then triggers an unknown macro error
  13   reported by naddy@  Sun, 3 Jul 2011 21:52:24 +0200
  14
  15 ************************************************************************
  16 * formatter bugs
  17 ************************************************************************
  18
  19 - tbl(7): Horizontal and vertical lines are formatted badly:
  20   With the box option, there is too much white space at the end of cells.
  21   Horizontal lines from "=" lines are a bit too long.
  22   yuri dot pankov at gmail dot com  Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:45:26 +0400
  23
  24 ************************************************************************
  25 * missing features
  26 ************************************************************************
  27
  28 --- missing roff features ----------------------------------------------
  29
  30 - The pod2man preamble wants \h'...' with quoted numerical arguments,
  31   see for example AUTHORS in MooseX::Getopt.3p, p5-MooseX-Getopt.
  32   reported by Andreas Voegele <mail at andreasvoegele dot com>
  33   Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:34:47 +0100 on ports@
  34
  35 - .if n \{
  36   .br\}
  37   should cause an extra space to be raised.
  38
  39 - .ad (adjust margins)
  40   .ad l -- adjust left margin only (flush left)
  41   .ad r -- adjust right margin only (flush right)
  42   .ad c -- center text on line
  43   .ad b -- adjust both margins (alias: .ad n)
  44   .na   -- temporarily disable adjustment without changing the mode
  45   .ad   -- re-enable adjustment without changing the mode
  46   Adjustment mode is ignored while in no-fill mode (.nf).
  47
  48 - .it (line traps) occur in mysql(1), yasm_arch(7)
  49   generated by DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.71.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
  50   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:48:18 -0500
  51
  52 - .ns (no-space mode) occurs in xine-config(1)
  53   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
  54
  55 - xloadimage(1) wants .ti (temporary indent), rep by naddy@
  56
  57 - .ta (tab settings) occurs in ircbug(1) and probably gnats(1)
  58   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:50:51 -0500
  59
  60 - \c (interrupted text) occurs in chat(8)
  61
  62 - using undefined strings or macros defines them to be empty
  63   wl@  Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:37:01 +0000
  64
  65 --- missing mdoc features ----------------------------------------------
  66
  67 - fix bad block nesting involving multiple identical explicit blocks
  68   see the OpenBSD mdoc_macro.c 1.47 commit message
  69
  70 - .Bl -column .Xo support is missing
  71   ultimate goal:
  72   restore .Xr and .Dv to
  73   lib/libc/compat-43/sigvec.3
  74   lib/libc/gen/signal.3
  75   lib/libc/sys/sigaction.2
  76
  77 - edge case: decide how to deal with blk_full bad nesting, e.g.
  78   .Sh .Nm .Bk .Nm .Ek .Sh found by jmc@ in ssh-keygen(1)
  79   from jmc@  Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:10:32 +0100
  80
  81 - \\ is now implemented correctly
  82   * when defining strings and macros using .ds and .de
  83   * when parsing roff(7) and man(7) macro arguments
  84   It does not yet work in mdoc(7) macro arguments
  85   because libmdoc does not yet use mandoc_getarg().
  86   Also check what happens in plain text, it must be identical to \e.
  87
  88 - .Bd -filled should not be the same as .Bd -ragged, but align both
  89   the left and right margin.  In groff, it is implemented in terms
  90   of .ad b, which we don't have either.  Found in cksum(1).
  91
  92 - implement blank `Bl -column', such as
  93   .Bl -column
  94   .It foo Ta bar
  95   .El
  96
  97 - explicitly disallow nested `Bl -column', which would clobber internal
  98   flags defined for struct mdoc_macro
  99
 100 - In .Bl -column .It, the end of the line probably has to be regarded
 101   as an implicit .Ta, if there could be one, see the following mildly
 102   ugly code from login.conf(5):
 103     .Bl -column minpasswordlen program xetcxmotd
 104     .It path Ta path Ta value of Dv _PATH_DEFPATH
 105     .br
 106     Default search path.
 107   reported by Michal Mazurek <akfaew at jasminek dot net>
 108   via jmc@ Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:00:53 +0059
 109
 110 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, punctuation is handled like normal
 111   text, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Fl x . Ta ...' should give "-x -."
 112
 113 - inside `.Bl -column' phrases, TERMP_IGNDELIM handling by `Pf'
 114   is not safe, e.g. `.Bl -column .It Pf a b .' gives "ab."
 115   but should give "ab ."
 116
 117 - set a meaningful default if no `Bl' list type is assigned
 118
 119 - have a blank `It' head for `Bl -tag' not puke
 120
 121 - prohibit `Nm' from having non-text HEAD children
 122   (e.g., NetBSD mDNSShared/dns-sd.1)
 123   (mdoc_html.c and mdoc_term.c `Nm' handlers can be slightly simplified)
 124
 125 - When there is free text in the SYNOPSIS and that free text contains
 126   the .Nm macro, groff somehow understands to treat the .Nm as an in-line
 127   macro, while mandoc treats it as a block macro and breaks the line.
 128   No idea how the logic for distinguishing in-line and block instances
 129   should be, needs investigation.
 130   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:03:51 +0200
 131   uqs@  Thu, 2 Jun 2011 11:33:35 +0200
 132
 133 --- missing man features -----------------------------------------------
 134
 135 - groff an-ext.tmac macros (.UR, .UE) occur in xine(5)
 136   reported by brad@  Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:45:23 -0500
 137
 138 - -T[x]html doesn't stipulate non-collapsing spaces in literal mode
 139
 140 --- missing tbl features -----------------------------------------------
 141
 142 - implement basic non-parametric .de to support e.g. sox(1)
 143   reported by naddy@ Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:51:57 +0200
 144   *** sox(1) still doesn't work, tbl(1) errors need investigation
 145
 146 - allow standalone `.' to be interpreted as an end-of-layout
 147   delimiter instead of being thrown away as a no-op roff line
 148   reported by Yuri Pankov, Wed 18 May 2011 11:34:59 CEST
 149
 150 --- missing misc features ----------------------------------------------
 151
 152 - clean up escape sequence handling, creating three classes:
 153   (1) fully implemented, or parsed and ignored without loss of content
 154   (2) unimplemented, potentially causing loss of content
 155       or serious mangling of formatting (e.g. \n) -> ERROR
 156       see textproc/mgdiff(1) for nice examples
 157   (3) undefined, just output the character -> perhaps WARNING
 158
 159 - The \t escape sequence is the same as a literal tab, see for example
 160   the ASCII table in hexdump(1) where
 161     .Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
 162     .It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
 163   produces
 164     000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
 165   and the example in oldrdist(1)
 166
 167 - look at pages generated from reStructeredText, e.g. devel/mercurial hg(1)
 168   These are a weird mixture of man(7) and custom autogenerated low-level
 169   roff stuff.  Figure out to what extent we can cope.
 170   For details, see http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
 171   noted by stsp@  Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:17:55 +0200
 172   reminded by nicm@  Mon, 3 May 2010 09:52:41 +0100
 173
 174 - check compatibility with Plan9:
 175   http://swtch.com/usr/local/plan9/tmac/tmac.an
 176   http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man7/man.html
 177   "Anthony J. Bentley" <anthonyjbentley@gmail.com> 28 Dec 2010 21:58:40 -0700
 178
 179 ************************************************************************
 180 * formatting issues: ugly output
 181 ************************************************************************
 182
 183 - a column list with blank `Ta' cells triggers a spurrious
 184   start-with-whitespace printing of a newline
 185
 186 - double quotes inside double quotes are escaped by doubling them
 187   implement this in mdoc(7), too
 188   so far, we only have it in roff(7) and man(7)
 189   reminded by millert@  Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:29:52 -0500
 190
 191 - perl(1) SYNOPSIS looks bad; reported by deraadt@
 192   1) man(7) seems to need SYNOPSIS .Nm blocks, too
 193
 194 - In .Bl -column,
 195   .It Em Authentication<tab>Key Length
 196   ought to render "Key Length" with emphasis, too,
 197   see OpenBSD iked.conf(5).
 198   reported again Nicolas Joly via wiz@ Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:20:00 +0200
 199
 200 - empty phrases in .Bl column produce too few blanks
 201   try e.g. .Bl -column It Ta Ta
 202   reported by millert Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:13:46 -0400
 203
 204 - .%T can have trailing punctuation.  Currently, it puts the trailing
 205   punctuation into a trailing MDOC_TEXT element inside its own scope.
 206   That element should rather be outside its scope, such that the
 207   punctuation does not get underlines.  This is not trivial to
 208   implement because .%T then needs some features of in_line_eoln() -
 209   slurp all arguments into one single text element - and one feature
 210   of in_line() - put trailing punctuation out of scope.
 211   Found in mount_nfs(8) and exports(5), search for "Appendix".
 212
 213 - in enclosures, mandoc sometimes fancies a bogus end of sentence
 214   reminded by jmc@  Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:13:39 +0059
 215
 216 ************************************************************************
 217 * formatting issues: gratuitous differences
 218 ************************************************************************
 219
 220 - .Rv (and probably .Ex) print different text if an `Nm' has been named
 221   or not (run a manual without `Nm blah' to see this).  I'm not sure
 222   that this exists in the wild, but it's still an error.
 223
 224 - In .Bl -bullet, the groff bullet is "+\b+\bo\bo", the mandoc bullet
 225   is just "o\bo".
 226   see for example OpenBSD ksh(1)
 227
 228 - The characters "|" and "\*(Ba" should never be bold,
 229   not even in the middle of a word, e.g. ".Cm b\*(Bac" in
 230   "mknod [-m mode] name b|c major minor"
 231   in OpenBSD ksh(1)
 232
 233 - A bogus .Pp between two .It must not produce a double blank line,
 234   see between -R and -r in OpenBSD rm(1), before "update" in mount(8),
 235   or in DIAGNOSTICS in init(8), or before "is always true" in ksh(1).
 236   The same happens with .Pp just before .El, see bgpd.conf(5).
 237   Also have `It' complain if `Pp' is invoked at certain times (not
 238   -compact?).
 239
 240 - .Pp between two .It in .Bl -column should produce one,
 241   not two blank lines, see e.g. login.conf(5).
 242   reported by jmc@  Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:04:58 +0059
 243   reported again by sthen@  Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:09:39 +0000 (UTC)
 244
 245 - If the *first* line after .It is .Pp, break the line right after
 246   the tag, do not pad with space characters before breaking.
 247   See the description of the a, c, and i commands in sed(1).
 248
 249 - If the first line after .It is .D1, do not assert a blank line
 250   in between, see for example tmux(1).
 251   reported by nicm@  13 Jan 2011 00:18:57 +0000
 252
 253 - .Nx 1.0a
 254   should be "NetBSD 1.0A", not "NetBSD 1.0a",
 255   see OpenBSD ccdconfig(8).
 256
 257 - In .Bl -tag, if a tag exceeds the right margin and must be continued
 258   on the next line, it must be indented by -width, not width+1;
 259   see "rule block|pass" in OpenBSD ifconfig(8).
 260
 261 - When the -width string contains macros, the macros must be rendered
 262   before measuring the width, for example
 263     .Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"
 264   in magic(5), located in src/usr.bin/file, is the same
 265   as -width 7n, not -width 11n.
 266   The same applies to .Bl -column column widths;
 267   reported again by Nicolas Joly Thu, 1 Mar 2012 13:41:26 +0100 via wiz@ 5 Mar
 268
 269 - The \& zero-width character counts as output.
 270   That is, when it is alone on a line between two .Pp,
 271   we want three blank lines, not two as in mandoc.
 272
 273 - When .Fn arguments exceed one output line, all but the first
 274   should be indented, see e.g. rpc(3);
 275   reported by jmc@ on discuss@  Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:48:33 +0100
 276   reported again by Nicolas Joly via wiz@  Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:24:40 +0200
 277   Also, we don't want to break the line within the argument of:
 278   .Fa "chtype tl"
 279
 280 - .Ns should work when called at the end of an input line, see
 281   the following code in vi(1):
 282     .It Xo
 283     .Op Ar line
 284     .Cm a Ns Op Cm ppend Ns
 285     .Op Cm !\&
 286     .Xc
 287     The input text is appended after the specified line.
 288
 289 - Header lines of excessive length:
 290   Port OpenBSD man_term.c rev. 1.25 to mdoc_term.c
 291   and document it in mdoc(7) and man(7) COMPATIBILITY
 292   found while talking to Chris Bennett
 293
 294 - In man(7), the sequence
 295     .HP
 296     one line of regular text
 297     .SH
 298   should not produce two blank lines before the .SH,
 299   see for example named-checkconf(8).
 300
 301 - In man(7), the sequence
 302     .SH HEADER
 303     <blank line>
 304     .PP
 305     regular text
 306   should not produce any blank lines between the header and the text,
 307   see for example rsync(1).
 308   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 309
 310 - In man(7), the sequence
 311     regular text
 312     .IP
 313     .IP "tag"
 314     indented text
 315   should produce one, not four blank lines between the regular text
 316   and the tag, see for example rsync(1).
 317   Likewise,
 318     regular text
 319     .IP
 320     indented text
 321   should produce one, not two blank lines in between, and
 322     regular text
 323     .IP
 324     .RS
 325     .IP tag
 326     indented text
 327   should produce one, not three blank lines.
 328   Reported by naddy@  Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:45:42 +0200
 329
 330 - trailing whitespace must be ignored even when followed by a font escape,
 331   see for example
 332     makes
 333     \fBdig \fR
 334     operate in batch mode
 335   in dig(1).
 336
 337 ************************************************************************
 338 * error reporting issues
 339 ************************************************************************
 340
 341 - .TP directly followed by .RS gives an assertion.
 342
 343 ************************************************************************
 344 * performance issues
 345 ************************************************************************
 346
 347 Several areas can be cleaned up to make mandoc even faster.  These are
 348
 349 - improve hashing mechanism for macros (quite important: performance)
 350
 351 - improve hashing mechanism for characters (not as important)
 352
 353 - the PDF file is HUGE: this can be reduced by using relative offsets
 354
 355 - instead of re-initialising the roff predefined-strings set before each
 356   parse, create a read-only version the first time and copy it
 357
 358 ************************************************************************
 359 * structural issues
 360 ************************************************************************
 361
 362 - We use the input line number at several places to distinguish
 363   same-line from different-line input.  That plainly doesn't work
 364   with user-defined macros, leading to random breakage.
 365
 366 - Find better ways to prevent endless loops
 367   in roff(7) macro and string expansion.
 368
 369 - Finish cleanup of date handling.
 370   Decide which formats should be recognized where.
 371   Update both mdoc(7) and man(7) documentation.
 372   Triggered by  Tim van der Molen  Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:30:45 +0100